On Tuesday I was in London to take part in a meeting of the Cultural Commissioning Programme Advisory Group. The Cultural Commissioning Programme is a three year programme, funded by Arts Council England, to explore how arts organisations can better engage with commissioning in order to develop better public service outcomes, diversifying income and users for arts organisations and ensuring high quality arts work in a public service context. Since the first meeting of the Advisory Group in November, the programme partners (the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, New Philanthropy Capital, the New Economics Foundation and Mission, Models, Money) have agreed three main areas of focus with Arts Council England: older people; mental health & wellbeing; and place-based commissioning. On Tuesday we looked at an overview of the programme workstreams and considered the detailed evaluation framework. I pointed out the importance of the potential role of intermediaries or brokers to ensure the involvement of small, local culture organisations in commissioning. We agreed the need to ensure that, as well as persuading more arts organisations to apply for commissioned work and urging commissioners to consider arts organisations, it will be important for the programme to focus on maximising the positive impacts on society of this activity. We were joined on Tuesday by Jane Tarr, Arts Council England Director of Resilience, who explained how the Cultural Commissioning Programme fits within ACE’s goals and priorities.